A bluffer’s guide…
It is worth mentioning at this point, that neither of us had ever paddle-boarded before the ideation of this trip, and we had in fact only stood on boards twice before leaving the UK. So we were going into this as total novices, and would do our best to learn as we went. We decided upon the 13’2 Explorer board from Red Paddle Co, due to its durability and toughness. Being beginners, we were certainly going to encounter some bumps, so we needed to have the confidence in our boards.
We set off onto the river which we had expertly scouted out using Google Maps, and immediately realised that the static satellite image did not give a true representation of the speed of the flow. It was quick! Soon enough we sped towards our first real challenge, a narrowing stretch of river full of exposed rocks and rapids. The water surrounding us was glacial, and although we were wearing wetsuits and boots, we knew that if we fell in, we wouldn’t have long to get ourselves out and warm again before hypothermia set in. With the boards bouncing around, we soon learnt that standing whilst tackling rapids was fairly impossible, so we ended up planted on our knees.
